Economic growth remains indispensable to guarantee national progress. Without growth, it becomes very difficult to sustain levels of living. In this country, growth rates during past years have kept going strong and at a pace for which there was no precedent, even as major problems emerged from all quarters of the outside world.

The drivers of growth were in large part the services being successfully exported (with tourism upfront but not only it) which then fuelled domestic buying and selling by residents.

In an economic system that is  market oriented as is the case in Malta, it is not possible to decide exactly how the desired growth will be achieved. What can be done is to try and guide the economy in a certain direction. If matters turn out as desired and expected, the aims that were set out are accomplished. That has happened and still is.

Yet there have been some to warn that the manner by which we have continued to grow the economy is coming to the end of its effectiveness, if that stage has not already been reached. It makes sense to consider these warnings seriously.

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MALTESE CUISINE

Efforts to give greater prominence to Maltese cuisine by preserving and employing recipes of local cooking and giving them publicity should be supported unreservedly. Basically, Maltese cuisine has been inspired by what our Mediterranean neighbours ate but without this having served to diminish its own specific character. It was an essential part of how the life of a small people living on an island in the centre of the Mediterranean developed  and should be considered as an integral element of our traditions that needs to be safeguarded and sustained.

Perhaps doing so has become an urgent assignment. The spread of fast food consumption has accelerated, notably with the emergence of transport services providing home deliveries of meals. Under the pressure of American and Asiatic food that is brought to you right how you want it, Maltese cooking at home is declining hugely.

In this context, people of great talent like Mr Anton Dougall deserve all praise for having continued to steadfastly promote the ancient and genuine traditions of Maltese food.

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ENTITLED

No doubt, during the last electoral campaign the PN showed signs of recovery from the uncertainties and incoherences it inherited from the years 2008-2013, which thoroughly undermined it. Still it needs to carry out further changes to its profile if it is to convince many people to give it really serious attention once again. The main changes do not concern the policies it proposes as much as the way by which it describes and communicates them.

Top of the change list should be the attitude which still persists among some of the party's leading supporters. From how they talk and present their arguments and comments, it's like they wish to project themselves as the chosen ones: almost by right, they should be considered as the society's "leaders". When the PN was still winning elections, independently of whether it did so by a whisker or not, perhaps this attitude could find people ready to tolerate it. Not since then - the aura of individuals who feel themselves "entitled" to run the place can only serve to antagonise and repel.